Social media is a powerful tool for brands to communicate with their audience and build a loyal following. If you’re just starting out with social media or looking to take your presence to the next level, it’s important to keep a few key things in mind. One key to success on social media is to understand how to effectively use the platform to reach and engage with your target audience.
If you have your brand strategy, you are one step closer to expanding your social media savviness. If not, take a look at this blog post, where I share everything you need to build your brand strategy.
Based on your brand strategy, brand voice, and brand goals, you can use social media to communicate with your target brand audience. To get started on branding with social media, I suggest using the three E’s. The Three E’s are of my own creation – Educate, Entertain, and Engage. They are your key to understanding the many factors that go into the “When” “Where” and “How” of communicating online.
Educate
The first ‘E’ is Educate. You can use social media to educate your target buyer personas on
- What your product is
- What your product does
- How to use your product
- How to use any of your free resources or complementary products
- Any bundles or deals you may have
- How you can make your target audience’s life easier
The goal is to clearly share what your brand offers, and why your audience needs your product or service. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes to better understand what information is most relevant to them. If I am a potential buyer perusing a brand’s social media account, I would be less interested in the specifics of the product, or how to install the product. Rather, I’d be more interested in the best uses for the product, or if I would need to buy anything else for the product to do what I need. While it might be useful to know how to replace the batteries in the product, I will first, and most importantly, need to know if the batteries are included with the product.
Entertain
The second ‘E’ is Entertain! One of the main reasons people use social media is for entertainment. They find funny videos, memes, and more to stay entertained throughout their day. While educating your audience on your product is a vital part of your marketing, social media users won’t want their scrolling fun to be interrupted with products and prices all of the time.
Don’t be afraid to share funny memes, gifs, and videos – as long as they are on-brand. You can share inspirational quotes with your audience, and hop on trending topics. This will help your followers get a better understanding of your brand’s character, and reinforce a positive impression of your brand.
Engage
The third and final ‘E’ is Engage. It’s vital to keep your audience engaged so that you can maintain and grow your social media presence. You can do this by not only giving educational and entertaining content but providing content that your followers can interact with. This could mean doing a poll on Instagram stories or asking a question for your audience to answer in the comment section of your post. You can also encourage your audience to shop for your products, subscribe to exclusive content, and provide feedback.
Don’t be shy on social media sites either! Like and respond to your follower’s comments, and comment on other relevant posts to show that there is more than a brand behind your social media account. There is a personality that cares about communicating with its audience.
How to Implement the Three E’s
There is so much conflicting advice online, and I want to make sure you walk away with a clear strategy to build a following, position yourself as an authority in your industry, and attract customers. Here’s the drill:
- Show people what you know
Evaluate how you can offer valuable tips and advice to your audience. You can do this by not only writing and sharing your own blog posts but also content that other relevant brands have written. This might even mean sharing a competitor’s content. I have even shared my competitor’s content to show how much I value educating my clients.
- Offer a variety of content in different formats
It’s important to not only share interesting blog posts and articles, but to offer your audience a variety of content like videos, pictures, and even podcasts if possible. Diversify your content on all different types of social media platforms, and share various types of media to reach people with differing likes and interests.
- Evaluate what’s working and adjust
Most social media platforms have analytics to show how what is keeping your audience most engaged. As you post different types of content, look at your analytics to see who is taking part in your quizzes, watching your videos, viewing your content, and interacting with it. Use this information to adjust your social media content to fit what your audience is more engaged by.
- Spread the Word
As you keep your audience engaged, encourage them to take action with your business. This could not only mean buying your products and downloading your content, but it could also mean asking for feedback, and for them to share your posts with their social media circles.
Every brand has its own perfect cocktail of these three E’s. To find what your mix looks like, start with your brand strategy. As you build your brand strategy, define your brand ethos, personality, voice and tone. Then, establish what kind of experience you want to provide your audience, not only with your audiences face-to-face experience, but online with your website and social media. This will help you understand your company’s purpose and personality to form your social strategy and perfect 3E cocktail.
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